Simon Lester

Edited by Debra Steger, former Director of the Appellate Body Secretariat and now a law professor: With a membership of 160 countries, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the international organization with responsibility for the global rules of trade between nations. Its stated principal function is to ensure that trade

That's one of the issues in an ongoing NAFTA Chapter 11 case.  Pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly is making an Article 1110 expropration claim related to the invalidation of certain of its patents in Canadian courts (it also makes an Article 1105 minimum standard of treatment claim).  More background

Last week, Andrew posted about the possibility of an exception to investment obligations, as part of the TTIP.  I'm interested to see where exceptions of this sort can take us in terms of preserving policy space, but I think we should also consider the obligations themselves as part

Many of you have probably noticed a new WorldTradeLaw.net web site.  Some aspects of the site are free for everyone, so I thought I'd mention one particular issue here on this blog:  How to link to PDF versions of WTO DS documents on the site. On the

This is from Inside U.S. Trade ($): Representatives of two U.S. regulatory agencies yesterday (June 24) expressed varying degrees of skepticism toward the idea of expanded regulatory cooperation with the European Union under a U.S.-EU trade deal, and raised fears that an agreement could slow down their

There are two new pieces on ISDS that are very good, one from UNCTAD and one from ECIPE.  Both have lots of good data on ISDS cases.  I'll let the data speak for itself, but I wanted to comment on the ECIPE piece, which is authored by Roderick

From Wednesday's DSB meeting: * With respect to the non-discrimination claims under Articles I and III of the GATT 1994, the findings by the Panel and Appellate Body are more troubling. * In particular, we are not fully persuaded by the Appellate Body’s finding that the national treatment provisions

From my friends at Sidley: Sidley Austin LLP cordially invites you to a book launch seminar and reception on the occasion of the publication of WTO Disciplines on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures - Balancing Policy Space and Legal Constraints (Cambridge University Press, 2014) by Dr. Dominic Coppens More information on

The other day I mentioned the EU WTO complaint regarding "sequencing" of DSU Article 21.5 and 22 in the Clove Cigarettes case.  The EU consultations request is here. The EU is upset that Indonesia pursued the case by going directly to DSU Article 22.2 for suspension

From Inside U.S. Trade, this is Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talking food labelling in the EU and U.S.: Vilsack also seemed to urge a rethink of an EU law that requires food containing more than 0.9 percent GMO-derived product to be labeled as such. While hinting that